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Beth Smith
Beth Smith (née Sanchez) is the daughter of Rick Sanchez, the wife of Jerry Smith, and the mother of Morty and Summer Smith. Sanctimonious and above others, she struggles with her husband over his contributions, due in part to his lower-level position, further driven by her father influencing her feelings of superiority. History The details of Beth's history are relatively unknown. She has recounted herself as a "bright-eyed" young girl from Muskegon, Michigan (''Meeseeks and Destroy'') raised primarily by her "unremarkable" mother after her father left them at an unknown time for unknown reasons. She aspired to be a heart surgeon but in High School, at age seventeen, she went to prom with classmate Jerry Smith, who impregnated her with Summer. Despite this, Beth was able to go on to college and become a veterinary surgeon. Beth has admitted that she contemplated aborting Summer, because "everybody thinks about it". Beth was distant towards her children at their infancy, as implied in ''Raising Gazorpazorp''. Her job as a veterinary surgeon at St. Equis Hospital causes her to spend less time with her family. It has been implied by Dan Harmon and ''Rick Potion No. 9'' that Jerry and Beth's relationship was more stable before Rick came back into her life. Appearance Beth is a relatively attractive woman with blonde hair, and a head shape similar to Rick's. She wears a red collar shirt, blue pants and white shoes. Underneath her shirt, Beth actually has rather large breasts which even Summer points out. Personality Beth is an intelligent, ambitious and independent woman who suffers from a variety of deep-seated insecurities. A dedicated veterinary horse surgeon, she is the family's main breadwinner and often tries to do the best for her family based on this sense of responsibility. She is insecure about her profession, however, and is quick to snap at the implication she is not a 'real' surgeon or a 'real' veterinarian, since she generally is a horse surgeon. It was strongly suggested in ''Rixty Minutes'' that even she shares this belief and wishes she had been able to continue her medical education to become a 'real' doctor. Nonetheless, she is very dedicated to her job, even beyond as a source of income, and was willing to give up her own pride to help save a deer's life successfully in ''A Rickle in Time''. She can be very compassionate and caring to those around her, more openly so than her father or husband. When she and Jerry accidentally hit a deer, her first concerns are to help and assist it and Beth will stop at nothing to bring it back to health. She expresses grave concern multiple times for Morty's education and health, and despite her marital regrets, she often considers the consequences of leaving Jerry. She generally has considered her family to be her first priority However, this quality can fade out quickly if she feels patronized, devalued, or that she or another family member, such as Morty or Rick, is threatened. While both she and Jerry share a number of common goals, generally around doing what is best for their family, these goals are strained by their disagreement on how to achieve these ends. Beth is quite critical of Jerry's ideas and often displays sarcasm, such as when she predicted Snuffles increased intelligence would backfire. She also feels under-appreciated by Jerry at times, or that their relationship is tying her down. Their disagreement over Rick's living situation with them is an extremely frequent source of tension. While in many cases, including with their son, Jerry is often the more sentimental and nurturing one, when the issue comes to Rick, she is often the one justifying his actions. A recurring theme in their relationship is Beth desiring to 'take a break' or even 'a trip' from Jerry, including ''Meeseeks and Destroy'' and ''Rixty Minutes''. Beth seems to have a superiority complex, believing herself at times to be above others, including her son Morty, such as when he is shown taking care of his own son and her husband, who unwittingly feeds her insecurities by implying she is not a 'real' surgeon, while her father seems to value her highly over her 'idiot' husband, in turn feeding her feelings of superiority. She also highly resents being patronized by her co-worker, Devin, when he lets her know they're losing a patient or when another veterinarian implies she cannot save a deer. These feelings of superiority, however, seem to disappear when Rick is removed from her life or even when she merely feels more confident in herself. Beth has a deep-seated desire to keep her father in her life, stemming from the fact that he was absent from her life for twenty years after he left her and her mother for unknown reasons. As a result, she has abandonment issues, and one of the reasons her relationship with Jerry has survived is her belief he is the only man in her life who's never abandoned her. She is generally willing to put up with Rick and his needs without sarcasm or argument, though she has her limits even for his behavior, and has given him ultimatums in ''Pilot'' and ''Auto Erotic Assimilation'', which he has followed. She seems to have also inherited her father's alcoholism, and is seen drinking wine briefly in ''Meeseeks and Destroy'' and more prominently in ''Rixty Minutes'' and ''Total Rickall''.'' However, she does overcome this (in one universe) in ''Rick Potion No. 9 where she comes to realize that Jerry truly does love her and will never leave her as Rick did and so her view of Rick drops to how Jerry views him. Relationships Rick Not much is known about Beth and Rick's relationship prior to the events of Rick and Morty. Jerry insinuates that Beth was raised "like a reptile" by Rick, suggesting that his method of parenting was very unorthodox. It is known that he left her mother for unknown reasons. Beth is very happy that Rick, her father, came back into her life sometime prior to ''Pilot''. She is usually defensive of him when Jerry badmouths him, and is largely convinced that Rick is good for the family. When she came to realize that Rick was indeed a bad influence on Morty and agreed with Jerry to send him to a nursing home, Morty seemed to exhibit superhuman intelligence - actually the results of dissolving megaseeds - convincing her to keep him around. Beth affectionately celebrates the one-year anniversary of Rick's return in Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind with UFO-shaped pancakes and despite her usual independence, seems to dote on him - and his alternate selves - in the same episode. This Beth, however, is not the same as the one in ''Rick Potion No. 9'', who comes to the conclusion that Rick is "a selfish, irresponsible ass". In the season 2 finale, ''The Wedding Squanchers'', Beth gets a closer look at her dad's personal life, and tries her best to keep Jerry from ruining her chances of going on adventures with him more often. Later in the episode, Beth is heartbroken to find that Rick abandoned her a second time (little did she know that this time, he self-sacrificed his freedom to spare her and her family from the Federation). When the family is taken back to earth by the Galactic Federation, she bursts into tears. Beth also seems to enjoy Rick's inventions, and appreciates the help he gives her. She allows Rick to stay rent-free in her home, possibly due to the fact that she doesn't want him leaving her again. That is the same reason why she disagreed with Jerry when he suggested that the family turn in Rick to the Federation so that they can go back home to Earth in ''The Wedding Squanchers''.'' Morty Beth knows that Morty is not very intelligent, and wants him to succeed in school. She has no problems allowing Rick to take Morty on most adventures, believing Rick is not only teaching him valuable life skills and improving his intelligence, but that he is the only friend Morty has. She believes that Morty was filled with Jerry's insecurities as a result of Jerry's overly-nurturing method of raising him, but as a result, is largely absent from Morty's life. Despite this, Beth does seems to consistently care about Morty's well-being, as she asks if Morty is getting sick in ''Pilot, and is concerned about the fact that does not do well in school or have any friends. Their relationship has yet to explored in any detail in the series however. In ''Rick Potion No. 9'', she admits that without Morty and Rick around, she is much happier, and seems indifferent to his fate. Jerry Jerry and Beth met in high school and had unprotected sex on prom night, resulting in the pregnancy that produced Summer, and seem to have been together and married ever since. Morty was born three years later. Their relationship is very rocky and strained, due to the fact that both of them missed out on fulfilling their dreams due to poor decision-making when they were younger. Jerry seems to still love Beth quite a lot, and tries hard to keep their marriage together, but Beth more than often contemplates leaving Jerry to pursue her own happiness and dreams. In Rixty Minutes, Jerry and Beth both get to see an alternate version of themselves in a different reality, and find themselves unsatisfied with their current lives, eventually deciding that splitting up would be inevitable. However, the alternate Jerry and Beth eventually realize that they are miserable without one another, and get together after years apart. Seeing this renews Jerry and Beth's relationship and they opt not to split up. Beth is angered by the fact that Jerry does not consider her job as a horse surgeon as being a "real surgeon", and is often frustrated by Jerry's insecurities and immature actions. She describes loving Jerry as "hard work", and that she "sort of" loves him in ''Rick Potion No. 9''. Summer Beth loves and cares about Summer, but the two do not seem very close much of the time. Beth had originally planned to get Summer aborted when she was still a fetus, but due to the fact that she and Jerry blew a tire on the way to the abortion clinic, they kept Summer. In Meeseeks and Destroy, Beth and Summer happily go shopping together after their Meeseeks disappear. Urging her father he may lose her, Summer acknowledges that Beth is a "beautiful woman". In a flashback from the episode, ''Total Rickall'','' a drunken Beth accidentally hits Summer in the eye with a bottle on her picture day. She tries to clean up her bruise with make-up. Summer tears up and insists the police take her to school instead of Beth. In [[Rick and Morty's Rushed Licensed Adventure|''Rick and Morty's Rushed Licensed Adventure]],'' Summer has an over-sized bra in her closet and jealously claims she'll grow into it because "Beth's got big boobs". Mr. Poopybutthole Throughout the episode, [[Total Rickall|''Total Rickall]],'' Beth acts suspiciously towards Mr. Poopybutthole, mistaking him for a parasite. Near the end of the episode, Beth pulls out one of Rick's laser guns and shoots Mr. Poopybutthole in the chest, blasting him across the room onto a wall. The rest of the family panics and Beth retreats into the kitchen and haphazardly pours a glass of wine with eyes filled with tears as Mr. Poopybutthole awaits an ambulance while bleeding heavily. After the end credits sequence, Mr. Poopybutthole is shown slowly recovering inside the hospital. After telling the doctor that he no longer wishes to see the Smiths at this point in time, the doctor tells Beth that's he's sorry that "They never had any bad memories of him". Davin Davin is Beth's coworker at St. Equis Hospital. Davin is in love with Beth and he constantly hits on her and tries to seduce her and win her over. Beth denies having any feelings for him, which she most likely doesn't, but Jerry does not trust her around him. Davin tries to romance Beth in [[Rick Potion No. 9|''Rick Potion No. 9]],'' but sneezes and is affected by Morty's love potion, asking "how soft are his privates". Davin turns into a "mantis-person" as a result of Rick's cure for it, and attacks Beth. Jerry bursts through the door and beats Davin to death with a crowbar. Trivia *Beth's voice actress, Sarah Chalke, has previously starred as a blonde-haired doctor before in the comedy-drama series ''Scrubs, and also on How I Met Your Mother. *Beth is a questioning atheist. Category:Characters Category:Female Characters Category:Smith Family Category:Protagonists Category:Humans Category:Beths